Saturday, November 30, 2013

Terry Jones is probably a familiar name, but if you don’t
remember Jones is a hardcore lunatic Christian pastor (currently based in
Florida), who runs the “Dove World Outreach Center”, most famous for
threatening to stage a mass burning of copies of the Qur'an to coincide with
the anniversary of 9/11 attacks in 2010 – which he eventually carried out in
March 2011 and later (he was arrested prior to 9/11, 2013).
Jones may also be rather heavily involved in the creation of the September 2012
video that caused some serious international brouhaha.
It is worth mentioning that he was expelled from Germany in 2009 for the way he
was running a religious group over there (in addition to some financial issues).

Burning the Qur’an and inciting lunatic response from
deranged fundamentalists, even if you know this is going to happen, is not
enough to qualify as a loon, however (the often overlooked “ritual” part of the plan is a different
matter, perhaps, and his idea that burning the Qu’ran was justly punishing
Muslims for 9/11 is not quite obviously entirely coherent either). Even more
obvious lunacy was displayed when he and his church hung an effigy of BarackObama in front of Dove World Outreach Center headquarters in 2012 for all of the usual batshit crazy reasons based on all the usual sorts of
conspiracy nuttery. In short, say what you want about his Qur’an burning plans
– Jones is a deeply deranged fellow.

Diagnosis: I suppose we had some kind of duty to mention
Terry Jones. He is, indeed, quite insane; he is also relatively inconsiderate
when it comes to preserving other people’s health and safety.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Laurie Beth Jones is an author and motivational speaker who
is supposed to motivate you to become, I suppose, a better leader (in the style
of the human potential movement).
But Jones’s approach, instead of being just fluffily newage, is rather hardcore
religious. So, for instance, she can help your company develop
“spiritreneurship”, which seems to mean ensuring that your employee’s work
honors God. In other words, Jones is some kind of missionary (“my Personal
Mission is to recognize, promote, and inspire divine connection in myself and
others”) dressed up with the fluff and hollow gestures of motivational speech,
as well as New Age ideas, a bit of Kabbalah rant, shamanism, and astrology.

Jones is, for instance, author of JESUS, Career Counselor: How to Find (and Keep) Your Perfect Work, Jesus, Inc.: The Visionary Path, Jesus, Life Coach: Learn from the Best,
and Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for
Visionary Leadership. You get the idea.

If you want to see some real crazy, however, I recommend
having a look at her critics, mostly fundamentalists who lament her paganism.
Here is Bob DeWaay dismissing her work not because it is fluffy bullshit, but
because it is occult paganism. And here is Ingrid Schlueter lamenting how Jones is channeling the occult and Satan
through her writings and apparently bringing about the endtimes.

Diagnosis: It is hard to distinguish loonery from marketing
techniques targeted at the critical-thinking challenged, but Jones’s bullshit
has actually had a bit of influence, it seems (some of her books have
apparently enjoyed decent sales).

“Have you ever considered this simple question: Are you
clean inside?” asks Heather Johnstone. The reason she asks is because she has
convinced herself that colon cleansing is the magical way to avoid disease, and
now she wants to convince you.
The fact that the idea is really ridiculous an so far away from any
evidence-based advice is less important when Johnstone applies her powers of
intuition and lack of basic insight into how the body actually works. Instead,
for Johnstone it’s all about the toxins,
and she claims – just as well, I suppose – that unclean bowels may be the cause
of every chronic disease there is.

To promote her woo, Johnstone runs the website drnatura.com (yes, you
guessed it; it is all about “what’s natural”).
As for herself, she presents herself as “Heather Johnstone, PhD” (in fact, she
presents herself as “PhD RN BC APN AMP-C RYT at 500 hour level”). Of course,
her “PhD” is a “PhD in Metaphysics” from the American Institute of HolisticTheology.
It is probably unnecessary to say that this is an unaccredited institution. She
also claims to be enrolled in Homeopathy and Naturopathy Programs at Greg Lawton’s Blue Heron Academy. It is probably unnecessary to
state that the accreditation level of said institution is approximately that of
your average spam.

Diagnosis: Woo. As pure, shining, and idiotic as it comes.
In fact, it is very likely that colon cleansings are not only not beneficial to
you, but possibly harmful, so Johnstone’s threat to civilization should not be
completely dismissed.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Michael Johnston is an ex-gay anti-gay activist, promoter of
reparative therapy,
and founder of the (now defunct) Kerusso ministries. In the 90s he became
central enough in the movement that even Jerry Falwell would use him as “proof” that gays could become heterosexuals, and Johnston
toured churches and schools with his message, underlining the fact that he had
contracted HIV during his gay years, and even helped the Assemblies of God
write their official position on homosexuality. He was also campaigning to use
sexual orientation as a criterion to deny fellow citizens equal treatment under
the law, the face of the Truth in Love campaign, and founder of Americans for
Truth (currently AFTAH, run by Peter LaBarbera).
Then, in 2003, Johnston and the Kerusso ministries disappeared, and all
references to him by the American Family Association and the Family Policy Network were deleted. Story here.

The reason, of course, was that Johnston
had been going by the name Sean and had been cruising men online. He had also
been organizing unsafe sex parties and lying about his HIV status. Of course,
once the news were released to the media,
the anti-gay movement desperately tried to downplay Johnston’s involvement.

In 2007, however, Johnston
reappeared as Director of Donor Relations for the Pure Life Ministry.
Though he is assuming a somewhat lower profile, his anti-gay efforts apparently
continue as before.

Diagnosis: It is somewhat hard to believe that Johnston
actually thinks of himself as “ex-gay”, but his efforts in the anti-gay
movement surely qualify him for an entry in the Encyclopedia. The Assembly of
God’s official position on sexual orientation is not reason-based, to put it
rather mildly.

Donald E. Johnson is a vocal creationist and author, who
runs the creationist website scienceintegrity.org. He is a signatory to the
Discovery Institute’s petition “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism”,
and has legitimate credentials in Information Sciences and in chemistry (though
nothing that touches on evolution), but is nevertheless not a working
scientist.

His books include Probability's
Nature and Nature's Probability, which also exists in a version for
non-specialists for outreach purposes – after all creationism is not
particularly concerned with science as much as outreach – and Programming for Life. The latter
purports to study the intersection of physical science and information science
with creationist conclusions, complete with persecution complex concerning the oppressive Darwinian paradigm in research institutions. Indeed,
it argues that since no one can disprove the existence of God, Intelligent
Design as a theory does not need evidence,
and that evolution remains falsified as long as there are gaps in the fossil
record.
Standard creationist lack of understanding of science, in other words.

Diagnosis: In one sense Johnson is standard fare, and his
influence – even within denialist communities – is probably somewhat limited.
He is nevertheless worth mentioning for the way he inadvertently manages to
reveal why Intelligent Design is not science through his writings, and for
exposing his own agenda (outreach in the name of Jesus; it has nothing to do
with science).